Twilight in Ice
by Freya-Kendra
Summary: Blair is trapped in a frigid twilight somewhere between life and death. Can Jim reach him before it's too late?


**Twilight in Ice**

_by Freya-Kendra_

Rating: PG  
Summary: Blair is trapped in a frigid twilight somewhere between life and death. Can Jim reach him before it's too late?  
Disclaimer: I lay no claims to the original song nor to the characters described here, but have merely borrowed them for the sake of personal entertainment. There is no financial gain coming from this endeavor

Twilight - that short span of time between day and night, between watchful awareness and dreamy expectation, between harsh reality and shadowy supposition, and sometimes even between life and death. It is a time of passage, a turning on the road that everyone must follow eventually. But it was not a turning Blair Sandburg was ready to make.

Not yet.

_*Jim.*_ The name hung in the air above him, out of reach. Everything was out of reach, even his own thoughts. His mind was growing as numb as his body. It was not an unpleasant sensation. In fact, there was something comforting about it, like a soft bed in a warm room. If only he could snuggle further under the covers.... But no. He must not.

Not yet.

_*Jim?*_ The name haunted him. It had value. It had meaning. Yet there was something as illusive about it as some long lost treasure. Blair could not be sure whether the Jim of his wavering thoughts suggested a real, physical being, or whether it was just some silly name he'd conjured to address the man in the moon.

It didn't matter. Whoever or whatever _*Jim*_ was, Blair needed to reach him.

_*Jim.*_

* * *

Awareness came with a sudden blast of arctic air that burned his lungs and stung his eyes with its icy, acid touch. Blair felt as though he'd gulped down a tray full of half-frozen ice cubes. He choked around the thick emptiness in his throat, and then coughed for long moments until his insides felt raw. Desperate to breathe despite his own body's efforts to dispel the biting chill surrounding him, he pounded his fist against something hard and unforgiving, emphasizing each wrenching attempt to fill his lungs.

He was fighting against nature. In a very real, very literal sense, he was fighting for his life.

It was an agonizingly slow evolution, but in time the coughing passed. He found himself able to draw in short, gasping breaths, enough to awaken the rest of his body to the frigidity. Part of him wished he hadn't been so successful. Every muscle tensed at once, racking him with uncontrollable tremors.

"J-j-jim?" He struggled to say through his own chattering teeth.

Receiving no answer, Blair made a conscious effort to remember what had happened. Skiing. They'd gone skiing. Or rather, Rafe, Conner and Jim had gone skiing. Blair had found it much more enjoyable to stay by the fire at the lodge. He remembered sharing a pot of chamomile tea with a blonde, blue-eyed ....

"No!" He shouted. He could not allow himself to surrender to the warmth, to the twilight. He could not allow himself to let go.

"J-jim? C-come on, man. T-talk t'm-me."

Still there was no response.

Blinking away tears, Blair stared into the darkness around him. Why was it so dark? Every night since they'd arrived, there was a certain glow that seemed to emanate from the snow itself, casting an almost ethereal light that made the entire mountain shimmer as though it existed in some fantasy world. Why not now? Why not tonight?

"J-j-jim?"

Was Blair alone? He wanted to turn around, to look for Jim, to see what had happened, where he was. But he could not move. He was trapped in a small, dark space that might have felt like a cocoon if its walls weren't so rock-hard. There was barely enough space for him to move his right arm. He tried to reach out, to feel the surface of his prison, but his hand was thick and numb. Every surface he touched felt the same. He could not even tell whether or not he was wearing gloves.

"J-j-jm?" Talking was rapidly becoming a useless effort. His shivering was getting more intense. Even his tongue was growing numb. And he was alone. He was trapped alone in darkness, entombed in ice.

"G-g-god!" Memories came crashing back to him like the crush of snow that had stormed down on top of him.

_*Sandy!*_ He remembered Conner's desperate cry.

She had finally talked him into hitting the slopes. *_It's not so cold once you get moving_,* she had insisted. *_The sun will even make you sweat after awhile_.*

He didn't believe her. He hated the cold, and he wanted no part of it. But she could be irritatingly persistent.

He should have stayed with the bunny hill. Better yet, he should have stayed with the blonde in the lodge.

_*Sandy!*_ He could still hear Conner shouting at him. He wasn't a good enough skier to follow her lead. Somehow they'd gotten separated.

Somehow he'd placed himself directly in the path of an avalanche.

_*Sandy!*_

"J-j-jim!" He shouted into the ice, pounding his dead hand uselessly against his prison walls. "Jim!"

It was useless, wasn't it? No one could hear him.

No. That wasn't true. Jim would hear him.

"Jim!" He shouted until his voice gave way to raspy nothingness. Then, "Jim?" he cried softly.

There was nothing more he could do -- nothing except, perhaps, give in to the twilight.

"J-jim?" He whispered. "It's n-not your f-fault, man. N-not C-conner's either. N-no one's fault, J-jim. N-no one's f-f...."

As his eyes drifted closed, his tense muscles began to relax and the shivering subsided.

* * *

Blair wrapped his cold hands around a steaming mug of tea, feeling comforted by the sound of popping embers in the fireplace beside him. He gazed up at his companion, not at all surprised to find the pretty blonde replaced by his partner, Jim.

_*Hey, Jim,*_ he said, smiling. _*This is a really nice place, man. I'm glad we came.*_

But Jim did not share his enthusiasm. His eyes were fierce, blazing hotter than the fire. _*No, Chief. This is wrong.*_

_*It's okay, man. I'm good.*_

_*No. It's not.*_

_*Come on, Jim. Relax, will you?*_

"Blair!" Jim shouted, but his voice was oddly distant. How could he sound so far away when he was sitting right there beside him?

"He's okay, right Jim?" Conner called from somewhere out of sight. "Tell me he's going to be okay!"

"Come on, Chief! Let me know you can hear me."

_*Of course I can hear you, Jim. Relax. Why's everyone so uptight?*_

Everything began to change then. The warm cup in Blair's hands merged with Jim's hands - Jim's hands rubbing hard against his own, Jim's hands pressing warmth into his frozen ones.

_*Jim?*_ Blair called from his perch by the fire, or from a rescue sled in the snow. Which was it? Where was he?

_*Jim?*_

"That's it, Chief," Jim said. "You can hear me, can't you? You're gonna be all right, buddy. You're gonna be just fine!"

"J-j-jim?" In that instant the lodge was gone. The fire, the tea, it was all gone. Blair was once against surrounded by ice.

No. That wasn't true. It wasn't all ice, not anymore. There was a fire of a sort kneeling right there beside him. There was Jim.

~ end ~


End file.
